Monday, May 19, 2008

I was involved in a crash on the information superhighway. Translation: My blog is inactive over at wordpress and there's not a darn thing I've been able to do about it -- yet!

As many of you know, I migrated this blog from blogger to wordpress on 4/30/08. I'm waiting on a response from their Help Desk, but as you can imagine -- I'm frantic and have been all day.

How to Respond When You're Involved in a Crash on the Information Superhighway

So, what should you do if your blog goes down? Well, there's always CRYING, which I was almost at the point of when I first discovered it was down. RAGE is good -- especially when you can't get anyone to get back to you and you have paid advertising out there. DRINKING -- I considered this, but have client copy to get in, so didn't want to chance any drunk ramblings.

Why I'm Making More Money with AssociatedContent (AC) Since They STOPPED Paying For My Content

I used to recycle my blog posts with AC. Meaning, once I wrote my posts, I would then sell the content to AC. I would receive anywhere from $4 to $9 for each recycled post. Then a few weeks ago, AC stopped paying for recycled content. At first, I was hopping mad because I had been pulling in an extra $20-$40/week selling my blog posts. This was residual income for me.

BUT, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum -- ah, I mean, during this transition. I reminded myself that AC has the right to set the rules as they see fit. One of the reasons I like freelancing is that I get to run my business the way I want to. And, that means being able to tweak the rules as my business needs change.

So instead of getting mad, I checked myself and changed my mindset. Instead of viewing AC as a direct income stream, I focused on using it as an indirect income stream. How?

How to Use Associated Content to Make Passive Income

When AC changed the rules, one of the things they allowed you to do is publish content just for page views only. They offered this all along as well, so now I focus solely on my audience at AC. Let me explain.

Building an Audience is to Your Benefit

Even though the upfront payment was nice, AC also offered page view performance payments (PV Payments). For every 1,000 page views your article receives, they pay you $1.50. This month, I received my biggest PV payout ever -- a bit more than $40. Now even though this isn't a lot, remember, it's money I didn't have to do anything for.

As of today's date, I have 108 subscribers to my content on AC. Now that I'm not searching for titles to write about just to pick up a few bucks (which I handn't done for a while anyway), I focus only on what these subscribers want to read -- freelance writing related content.

In the past, I'd written about everything from the best flowers to plant in spring to deodorant reviews. Although the majority of my articles have always been freelance writing related, subscribers could never rely on receiving this type of content 100% of the time. Now they can.

Because subscribers know that that's what they're going to be getting from me, they're much more likely to read and recommend my content -- leading to more subscribers.

Social Bookmarking: So, my advice to anyone who wants to submit content to AC "for free" is to change your mindset about it. Think of it more as a social bookmarking site than an "online community news site," as they like to market themselves.

Why You Shouldn't Depend Solely on Other Sites for Your Traffic -- 2 Lessons Learned from This Experience

1. No matter what site you decide to get involved with online -- focus on building a community there. For, the rules of the game may change from site to site, but if you've built up a loyal base, a good portion of them will follow you.

2.Build your own online presence -- so you have somewhere for subscribers to still reach and follow you if the rules do change on some other site/community.

Happy online marketing -- and I hope your Monday has been a mite bit better than mine,

I just moved though and am getting people used to a new URL. And, I'm right in themiddle of hiring someone to build out the template I'm using. So, it would just be a pain all around to move yet again.

I thought I could at least camp out at wordpress for a few years. But, if this isn't resolved soon, I'm going to do just that.

Thanks for your loyal readership though. I appreciate it. FYI, I'll be posting here in the old spot until I can get my new home in working order.

I clicked on your wordpress blog link and it said the same thing that mine said, "in violation of their terms." They apparently shut me down so I had to go to blogger. I was told that I was using too many keywords and that constituted trying to manipulate the search engines. Bommer!!! And to top it off, I had redirected my domain name to their server. I haven't done anything about that yet but will soon. Thanks for sharing your story.

@WriterforHire: What I hated was that they gave you no warning, no time to fix the "problem." I'm like, I've been blogging at blogger for over three years and you penalize me b/c I'm have on my blog that I'm an SEO writer. I wasn't keyword stuffing or anything.

I thought it highly unprofessional and was only too glad to come back to blogger.

Good luck with getting your blogging house in order. I feel you pain -- and truly sympathize.

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ABOUT

I'm a freelance writer and web entrepreneur. I manage New Media Words, an SEO writing and internet marketing outsource firm. I also publish InkwellEditorial.com and this blog, which dispenses in-depth advice, tips and inspiration on freelance writing.
I've also written and published 10 ebooks on freelance writing and small business marketing.
COPYRIGHT: Unless otherwise noted, all content on this blog is copyrighted by me, Yuwanda Black, and may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without my written consent.